Presented by the Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco

舊金山中華文化中心呈獻

Date: August 23, 2025, 4-9 pm

8月23號 (星期六)下午4點至10點

4 pm - Opening Parade - 667 Grant Ave.

下午4點：華埠鬼節開幕遊行開始  都板街667號

 4-9 pm Hungry Ghost Festival Program

FREE TO THE PUBLIC

Grant Ave - Portsmouth Square Park - 750 Kearny St Third Floor

Art activities, Performance, Shopping & Art Challenge

華埠鬼節地點：Kearny 街750號三樓 ｜都板街｜花園角公園

下午4點至10點：藝術活動，表演，及「好鬼好玩挑戰」

免費節目

2025 Hungry Ghost Festival: Demons Of Our Times

A festival for all who carry sorrow and rage

As our world tilts into chaos, the ghosts we once feared now wear new faces. Time-tested “rituals” of demonizing immigrants and rationalizing terror are in full force. So we ask: Who is the demon of our times?

Demons of Our Times invites you to confront this question through a contemporary reimagining of a radical tradition. Known as Zhongyuan or Yulan Festival, the Hungry Ghost Festival is observed across the Chinese diaspora. On the fifteenth night of the seventh lunar month, the most anguished spirits breach the boundaries between worlds, seeking solace through rituals of food, fire, and performance.

For immigrant and marginalized communities often treated as enemies and scapegoats, the Hungry Ghost Festival has long carried profound meaning. Before the 1920s, it was one of the most vital healing rituals in California’s Chinatowns, offering peace amid perilous journeys, wrongful deaths, and heartbreaking separations. Today, in the face of relentless attacks on human dignity, we reclaim the festival’s original power: remembrance, resistance, and cathartic release.

This year’s festival summons the Ghost King Parade, a main stage, and powerful site-specific artworks. The 14-foot Ghost King—crafted specifically for this moment and led by the Lotus Tao Cultural Institute—will march through Chinatown, performing a ritual that mends fractured souls and keeps the evil at bay. From Cantonese opera to trans Indigenous folk punk, the stage belongs to shapeshifters and mythmakers. Surrounding it, commissioned altars and ritual installations by BIPOC artists rise, responding directly to our theme.

Will you stand with us to face the demons of our times? If so, bring your fire to the festival!

2025 Hungry Ghost Festival would not be possible without the support of our sponsors:

Supporters

California Natural Resources Agency

California Department of Social Services - Stop the Hate Program

Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office

Additional Support

Grants for the Arts

San Francisco Arts Commission

Portsmouth Plaza Parking Corporation

Crankstart

Battery Powered Foundation

SF Rec & Parks

CCC Contemporaries